The atrocities committed against Tamils during the 25-year civil war in Sri Lanka amounted to ethnic cleansing and even today a huge drive is underway to change the demography of the Tamil-dominated region, noted photographer and former UN staffer Benjamin Dix said today.

Dix worked as communication manager for the United Nations in Sri Lanka and spent four years (2004-2008) to bring the human rights abuses in the island nation to a wider audience.

He was based in LTTE-controlled Vanni in the northern region.

“The crimes in Sri Lanka were horrific from both sides. The Sri Lankan Army is culpable of war crimes, but the Tamil leadership also failed the people in the last decade of the civil war,” the noted photographer told PTI in an interview at the Jaipur Literature Festival here.

“The Sri Lankan Army does not believe that they committed atrocities. It is a propaganda that they liberated Tamils from the Tamil leadership. It was not a liberation, but destruction of the Tamil community,” he said.

The noted photographer has co-authored with Lindsay Pollock the graphic novel entitled “The Vanni” that deals with the fortunes of a fictional Tamil family through war and displacement, and its search for asylum.

Dix said the accusations levelled against the Sri Lankan Army of committing genocide were a “very fair” assessment. (Economic Times)

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